2018 in review and looking forward to 2019

Well, the year is almost over and this year has been amazing for me. So I just wanted to write a quick small blog highlighting some great things of 2018 and write a bit of what you can expect from me in 2019.

Events

This year I visited a few awesome events:

Citrix Synergy – My first big intercontinental event. It was super to get a first look at everything to come in 2018

Ivanti Interchange Unplugged 2018 – This was a great look at the Ivanti portfolio

E2EVC Amsterdam – The E2EVC is always a great and social event. This also was the first time I presented at the E2EVC

E2EVC Greece – Again a great event, learned so much and again had the change to present.

DuCUG – Great dutch event where everyone knows everyone, a great networking event! Here I had the change to present about automation.

vMA TechCon – A great event about automation and VMware

And more…

Public Speaking

This year I did a few public speaking events. And I have to say I really enjoyed presenting and talking about automation and scripting. The first presentation I did was at the E2EVC in Amsterdam together with Rob de Korte. The presentation was about automating Citrix components and vDisk deployment. Later in the year I presented again at the E2EVC ,but in Athens, together with Chris Jeucken . We talked about the automation of Citrix Applayering and VMware App Volumes. The last presentation I did this year was at DuCUG (Dutch Citrix User Group). This was my first big presentation that I did alone. The presentation I gave was about the automation of Citrix Images and continuous development. The proudest moment came after the DuCUG presentation when they did a survey amongst the vistors and they rated my presentation with the highest score of the day with a 7.88. Thank you for everyone who voted ! Another proud moment was when I was awarded VMware vExpert, a great community to be part of.

Video of the presentation at E2EVC Greece:

Work

So of course next to my blog and public speaking I have a normal day job as Senior Consultant at Detron in the Netherlands. And I did some great things in 2018. I created an entire new and automated work environment for the office of a province. Deployed my automation guide for vDisks at multiple customers, with great success. And did a few great pre-sales projects. In the last few months of 2018 I have been focussing on writing a business case for automating and standardizing of IT services. This business case has been green lit to create a more in depth plan. Which means that I now have a new function starting in 2019 as Principal Consultant. I won’t be going to customers as often but will be focussing more on the standardizing and automation of IT services.

2019…..

So what’s coming in 2019? There will be a great new sponsor, Workspace 365, I will be writing about them in January. Further much more blogs about scripting and automation. Since I will also be focussing on scripting mainly during work , this will combine great. I will also give a presentation about automation at the E2EVC in Berlin in June. And I’m still busy with a new version of the XenServer backup tool. I was hoping to finish it this year but because of a large project at work I didn’t have the time to finish. But it is still on the planning! For now I want to wish everyone a great 2019 and be careful with fireworks !!

I hope this was informative. For questions or comments you can always give a reaction in the comment section or contact me: